Dr. Theodore Herman Jewett was
born at South Berwick, Maine, on the 24th of March, 1815.

His ancestors were English, of
Danish descent on one side and French on the other, and he was the second
son of Capt. Theodore F. Jewett. His childhood was spent in Portsmouth,
N. H., the family returning later to South Berwick, when his father gave
up, early in life, his business of following the sea.

He was a delicate
boy, caring less for the active sports than for reading, and he soon showed
his preference for the life of a student. He was fitted for college at
Berwick
Academy, which, at that time, took very high rank, and entered Bowdoin
College in 1830, at the age of fifteen. Professor Packard, who was
his life-long friend, remembers him at that time as a handsome, red-cheeked
boy, a most loveable young fellow, somewhat quiet and diffident, but very
winning in his manner, and a very great favorite both with the faculty
and his classmates." Early during his college course, he decided upon studying
medicine, and, from that time until his death, he was always an eager,
diligent, untiring student of the profession, which he loved with his whole
heart, and to which he did as much honor as any man who ever followed it,
if we believe such honor to be in having a rare and noble talent for his
work, and a determination to cultivate and use this talent for the good
of his fellow-men.

After his graduation,
thinking himself too young to enter upon his medical course, he taught
for a year or two at Limerick and at Derry,
New Hampshire. He afterwards attended the medical
lectures at Hanover and at Boston, studying for two years with Dr.
William Perry, of Exeter, N. H., who was a most eminent physician and surgeon,
and who pronounces him to have been a most admirable student, of wonderful
powers of mind and singularly close habits of observation and study. Dr.
Jewett was also, for some time, a student with Dr. WINSLOW LEWIS, of Boston,
who also recognized his ability and took the greatest interest in him.
He spent a year at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Chelsea,
and was also for a time among the city charitable institutions of Boston.
He took his degree at the Jefferson Medical College
in Philadelphia, where he spent the winter of 1839.

After his graduation he had planned
to go abroad for some time, to perfect himself in some specialty in the
medical schools of Europe, and, on his return, to locate himself in one
of our larger cities. But his health was at this time very delicate; he
had had several alarming hæmorrhages from the lungs, and his brother
had just died with consumption, which it was feared he also had inherited.
His father, who was a man of considerable wealth, begged him so persistently
not to leave home, that, to use Dr. Jewett's own words, he stayed in Berwick
merely to please him, always hoping that after a time the opposition would
be removed. And there his life was, for the most part, spent. It could
not help being, at times, somewhat a lonely life, for he was shut out from
the larger circle of professional friends, with its pleasures and advantages,
to which he would have belonged in a city. Not that his ambition ever needed
more stimulus than it found, or that he ever felt that his skill had been
thrown away, where it was not appreciated. The people in the village and
on the lonely farms seldom realized what a man he was, though they put
their confidence in him so fully as their doctor and their friend. How
much of their care and trouble he helped them carry, how kind and how trustworthy
he was in every way, one can never tell. There never was a man in all that
region more deeply loved, and no man ever died there at whose loss more
tears were shed. He wrought many most wonderful cures, which at times came
to the knowledge of men who could appreciate them, but his victories over
disease were oftener unheralded and unrecorded, and he was content to have
it so, since his wish was not so much to be called great as to be useful,
and the service done, he was glad, and there was an end of it. He was always
busy, either about his active professional work or in his study, where
he kept up with the time in his reading, though he had often anticipated,
in his own thought and experience, what was paraded as a brilliant new
idea or a novel success.

Dr. John E. Tyler,
late of the McLean Asylum for the Insane, who was
one of his oldest and best friends, and who had known the famous medical
men of his own country and Europe, said of Dr. Jewett, that he was the
best physician of his acquaintance; that his knowledge of therapeutics,
and his tact in doing the right thing at the right time and in the right
way was marvelous.

One can only wish that the treasure
of wisdom and experience which was his could have been left as an inheritance
to some one who could go on with the exercise of its usefulness, but it
is believed that such a legacy has been left in part, for he was pre-eminently
a teacher; one could not talk with him for even a little while, without
being the wiser for it. He was always willing and glad to impart his knowledge
to his brother physicians, trying to learn himself and eager to help others
whenever he could. In the course of his wide-spread practice as a consulting
physician, he left the men whom he met always richer for the practical
ideas and suggestions and excellent prescriptions of which his mind was
always full. His enthusiasm for his profession was unfailing to the last
day of his life. It was never a dull trade to him, and he ministered, as
has been truly said, to the souls as well as to the bodies of his patients.

As a man, he won
friends for himself everywhere; his genial, beautiful smile, and rare wit
and humor, his unselfishness and kind-heartedness, made his presence seem
like sunshine everywhere he went. There was something singularly attractive
in his face. Even on a journey, or elsewhere, among entire strangers, he
at once roused people's interest, and everybody seemed to recognise the
true-hearted gentleman and charming companion at first sight. And the longer
one was with him, the more one knew his nobleness and purity of mind, his
wonderful insight into human nature, his perfect integrity and hatred of
deceit, his great learning in his profession, his accomplished scholarship
in general literature, and his unerring common sense. He never was tired
of living, and never grew old; his heart was always young, and the thought
of him brings to mind these words of the wise old doctor, Sir
Thomas Browne, "and since there is something of us that will still
live on, join both lives together and live in one but for the other, He
who thus ordereth the purpose of this life will never be far from the next."

Whether one speaks of him as a gentleman,
the hospitable, generous master of his own house, or the delightful guest,
as the skillful, daring surgeon, or quick-sighted, ready, careful physician,
as the faithful Christian, with his simplicity and loyalty and perfect
trust, and his willing service to his best friend and Master, the
Great Physician, it is hard to praise him enough; it is simply impossible
to praise him too much.

Dr. Jewett held
for some years the Professorship of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and
Children at the Medical School of Maine, and, during
the
war, he held the post of Surgeon of the Board of Enrollment for the
first district of Maine, at Portland. He was one of the Consulting Surgeons
of the Maine General Hospital at Portland, an honorary member of several
medical societies, and member of the Maine Historical Society, beside holding
many other positions of trust and honor. He took the warmest interest in
the welfare of this Association, of which he was, at one time, President,
and his address, delivered at its meeting in 1878,
has excited the attention it deserves, and has been considered, by the
best judges, one of the ablest essays on the practice of medicine ever
written.

Dr. Jewett contributed occasionally
to the medical magazines, and presented most learned and valuable papers
before this and other medical associations. It is much to be regretted,
both that he wrote so little and that he did not keep his published articles
together, as no list can be made of them.

Dr. Jewett died
suddenly at the Crawford House, White Mountains, on
the 20th of September, 1878, from heart disease, the existence of which
he carefully concealed from his family and friends, going bravely on with
his work until a short time before his death, of which he showed no fear
whatever. He dreaded an old age of enforced idleness, of failing health,
and the gradual giving up of the duties of his profession, and it is a
cause of gratitude to those who knew him best that he finished his work
in this world and went away so quickly to a better one, since it was always
his own wish and hope that it might be so.

He was married in 1842 to Miss
Perry, of Exeter, New Hampshire, who survives him with three daughters.

NOTES

Richard Cary in "Some Bibliographic
Ghosts of Sarah Orne Jewett," in Colby Library Quarterly (8:3, Sept.
1968, p. 140) attributes this obituary piece on her father to Jewett. "Theodore
Herman Jewett, M.D. of South Berwick" appeared in Transactions of the
Maine Medical Association, 1877-1879 (6, 1879, pp. 680-684). Though
the author is listed as J. W. Beede, M.D., Cary points out that the statements
in the Necrology Committee Report, from which this comes, were "presented
precisely as they were furnished by the respective friends of the deceased."
Cary goes on to say "There would seem little doubt that this tribute to
Dr. Jewett's 'treasure of wisdom and experience' was penned by his adoring
daughter." It turns out that Cary almost certainly is correct. A
manuscript of this essay in Jewett's hand is in the Houghton Library at
Harvard University: MS Am 1743.22 (28). If you find errors or items needing
annotation, please contact the site manager. [ Back
]

Berwick Academy ... Bowdoin
College: Jewett and her father both were educated
at the Berwick Academy in South Berwick, one of the top prep schools in
New England in the nineteenth century. See "The Old Town of Berwick" for
further information about the school. Bowdoin College in New Brunswick,
Maine, was a well-known and respected college, as it remains today; Nathaniel
Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are among the more famous graduates. [ Back
]

Limerick ... Derry, New Hampshire:
Theodore Jewett worked as a school teacher for a couple years, according
to Paula Blanchard in Sarah Orne Jewett. Presumably these are the
towns where he kept school. [ Back
]

medical lectures at Hanover
and at Boston: Blanchard also reports that Dr.
Jewett's early medical education was informal. This included attending
lectures at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, but Jewett's biographers
do not specify where in Boston he attended lectures. [ Back
]

U. S. Marine Hospital in Chelsea:
Castle Island in Boston Harbor was chosen as the temporary site for the
first marine hospital. Dr. Thomas Welsh, a Harvard College graduate (1772)
and participant in the Revolutionary War battles of both Lexington and
Bunker Hill, was appointed as the physician in charge in 1799. (Research:
Chris Butler). [ Back
]

Jefferson Medical College in
Philadelphia: Jefferson Medical College was founded in 1824. It is
connected with the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. (Research: Chris
Butler). [ Back
]

the McLean Asylum for the Insane:
This was located in Charlestown, near Boston, in the 19th century.
(Research: Chris Butler). [ Back
]

Sir Thomas Browne:Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). Jewett uses this quotation in
at least two other works: "The Foreigner" and in her father's obituary.
In the final paragraph of Browne's "Letter to a Friend," (1690), Browne
says:

Time past is gone like a shadow; make Times to
come, present; conceive that near which may be far off; approximate thy
last Times by present Apprehensions of them: live like a Neighbour unto
Death, and think there is but little to come. And since there is something
in us that must still live on, joyn both Lives together; unite them in
thy Thoughts and Actions, and live in one but for the other. He who thus
ordereth the Purposes of this Life, will never be far from the next; and
is in some manner already in it, by an happy Conformity, and close Apprehension
of it.<http://penelope.uchicago.edu/letter/letter.html>

"Letter to a Friend" was largely reproduced in Christian
Morals (1716), where the passage occurs in the last paragraph, this
time somewhat closer to Jewett's wording:

Time past is gone like a Shadow; make time to
come present. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensionsof them: be like a neighbour unto the Grave, and think
there is but little to come. And since there is something of us that will
still live on, Join both lives together, and live in one but for the other.
He who thus ordereth the purposes of this Life will never be far from the
next, and is in some manner already in it, by a happy conformity, and close
apprehension of it. And if, as we have elsewhere declared, any have been
so happy as personally to understand Christian Annihilation, Extasy, Exolution,
Transformation, the Kiss of the Spouse, and Ingression into the Divine
Shadow, according to MysticalTheology, they have already had an handsome Anticipation
of Heaven; the World is in a manner over, and the Earth in Ashes unto them.<http://penelope.uchicago.edu/cmorals/cmorals3.html>

his Master, the Great Physician:
Refers to Jesus Christ, who can be seen as a model physician in offering
comfort and healing for body and spirit. [ Back
]

the Medical School of Maine:
The Medical School of Maine was founded in 1820, and permanently closed
its doors in 1921. During its time in Brunswick, Maine, the school awarded
over 2,000 degrees. (Research: Chris Butler). [ Back ]

his address, delivered at
its meeting in 1878: I have found as yet no record
of Jewett giving an address to the Maine Medical Association in 1878, the
year of his death, though it is possible he did so. One of his earlier
public speeches was well-known and had been published: Elements of Success
in the Medical Profession. Introductory Lecture Delivered Before the Students
of the Medical Department of Bowdoin College, February 21, 1867 was
published as a 28 page book in 1869. [ Back ]

Crawford House, White Mountains:
Elizabeth Silverthorne in Sarah Orne Jewett (83-4) recounts Dr.
Jewett's death in some detail, placing it in the Crawford House at Crawford
Notch in New Hampshire's White Mountains. The Michelin Guide to New
England (1993) indicates that the notch was named for the Crawford
family, which in the 19th century cut the first trail to the
summit of nearby Mount Washington, the highest peak in the White Mountains. [ Back ]

Edited and annotated by Terry Heller with assistance from
Chris Butler, Coe College.